Paget Brewster figures at least 15, maybe 16 people remember her from her public-access TV days in San Francisco in the mid-'90s. The show was "Strange America," and Brewster wrote and performed silly comedy sketches, like the one in which she played an inept terrorist who succeeds in making botulin and accidentally poisons herself.

"I feel really bad about that now because we showed how to make it," says Brewster, 30. "That was irresponsible. But I got the idea from an episode of 'Quincy.' "

Public access is usually followed by oblivion. But Brewster managed to turn it into a career move. First came her own late-late-night talk show, then a recurring role on "Friends" followed by parts on five failed TV pilots. The sixth was the charm.

This fall, she stars in "Love & Money," a new CBS sitcom. It premieres at 8:30 p.m. October 8.

By then, her musical career was over. "Punk makes it sound a lot cooler than it was," she says. "I was a pretty pretentious lyricist. But it was fun. People thought we were either atrocious or brilliant, but most people thought we were atrocious."

Hosting a talk show was more her style. "The Paget Show," aired at 1:30 a.m. on KPIX (Channel 5) in 1995. "The San Francisco audiences were fabulous. We'd get about 100 people at the studio, every age, every race, every religion," she says. "We had these really lively debates -- no fights or anything. We had this polygamist on -- a month later, he shows up on 'Jerry Springer.' We had people with multiple piercings, a great drag queen contest, one episode called 'Mom, Please Stop Smoking.' "

After the show was canceled, Brewster moved to Los Angeles. On "Friends," she played Joey's (Matt LeBlanc) girlfriend who cheats on him with Chandler (Matthew Perry). "Slutty Cathy, that was me," she says. Then came the string of pilots that didn't get picked up. "After the first couple of times, you expect it not to work out. Otherwise you get your heart broken," she says.

"This one was so much fun to do, and it went so well, and I thought, 'Oh, how sad.' "

The only problem was the producers fired Dash Mihok, the actor who played the super, and replaced him with Van Holt. "It was weird redoing the love scenes with a different guy," Brewster says. "I felt like I was cheating on Dash."

Whatever happens with the program, Brewster will bounce back. Infectiously cheery, she is a trouper. "I get to watch Swoosie Kurtz and David Stiers work. What a great training ground," she says. "I still have a lot to learn."